Tor Proxy on Arch Linux

These notes are copied from this article. It was primarily focused on Ubuntu 20.04 Linux, but the step-by-step processes also worked on Arch Linux.

Installation

Tor helps to avoid identification of you by routing your network data through a pool of servers around the world.

$ sudo pacman -S tor

By default, Tor runs on port 9050 - confirm with ss command (another utility to investigae sockets).

$ ss -nlt
State        Recv-Q       Send-Q             Local Address:Port              Peer Address:Port       
LISTEN       0            4096                   127.0.0.1:9050                   0.0.0.0:*                    
LISTEN       0            4096                     0.0.0.0:5355                   0.0.0.0:*                         

• n - numeric (make not human readable and be specific), l - listening sockets, t - TCP sockets.

Tor Network Connection Test

Check your current IP address, obtain an external IP address from Tor network, and then make sure they are different.

# Current IP Address
$ wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo
 
# Obtain IP Address from Tor network
$ torsocks wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo

Torifying Your Shell

Using the Tor network by default for shell commands

# ON
$ source torsocks on
Tor mode activated. Every command will be torified for this shell
 
# This command goes through Tor network
$ wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo
162.247.74.200
 
# Making permanent for all new shell sessions
$ echo ". torsocks on" >> ~/.bashrc
 
# OFF
$ source torsocks off
Tor mode deactivated. Command will NOT go through Tor anymore.

Enable the Tor Control Port

To interact with the Tor installation on our system.

First, password protect the Tor connection - through hashing process.

# Enter your Tor password
$ torpass=$(tor --hash-password "my-tor-password")
 
# Enabling the Tor control port and inserting hashed password.
$ printf "HashedControlPassword $torpass\nControlPort 9051\n" | sudo tee -a /etc/tor/torrc

Checking the config file /etc/tor/torrc:

$ tail -2 /etc/tor/torrc
HashedControlPassword 16:5D13CF3C7511D9FC60161179F8FFA1083C99601A5257CDC622E161839B
ControlPort 9051
 
# Restarting to apply changes
$ sudo systemctl restart tor

You should able to see the Tor service running on both ports 9050 and 9051:

$ ss -nlt
$ tail -2 /etc/tor/torrc
State        Recv-Q       Send-Q             Local Address:Port              Peer Address:Port       
LISTEN       0            4096                   127.0.0.1:9050                   0.0.0.0:*          
LISTEN       0            4096                   127.0.0.1:9051                   0.0.0.0:*   
...

Connecting to Tor Control Port

Now able to connect to the Tor control port to communicate with Tor and issue commands. e.g., using telnet command to request a new Tor circuit and clear cache:

$ telnet 127.0.0.1 9051
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
AUTHENTICATE "my-tor-password"
250 OK
SIGNAL NEWNYM
250 OK
SIGNAL CLEARDNSCACHE
250 OK
quit
250 closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

Tor control port can also be shell scripted. e.g., which will request a new circuit (IP Address) from Tor:

$ source torsocks off
Tor mode deactivated. Command will NOT go through Tor anymore.
$ torsocks wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo
103.1.206.100
$ echo -e 'AUTHENTICATE "my-tor-password"\r\nsignal NEWNYM\r\nQUIT' | nc 127.0.0.1 9051
250 OK
250 OK
250 closing connection
$ torsocks wget -qO - https://api.ipify.org; echo
185.100.87.206

This script can be executed any time you need to obtain a new circuit.

Configure Web Browser to Use Tor Network

• Open settings panel - Firefox: about:preferences in search bar > General > Network Settings - “Settings…” button.
• “Manual proxy configuration” and enter localhost under the “SOCKS Host” field, port 9050.
• Go to IP Chicken to make sure that you are connected to the Tor network.